Screening of The Reports on Sarah and Saleem at the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi in UA

Screening of The Reports on Sarah and Saleem at the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi in UA

The Reports on Sarah and Saleem by director Muayad Alayan will screen at the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi in UAE today on Monday, March 4. This marks the film's Emirati premiere, preparing for its commercial release there.

Most recently, the film won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature Film at the Boston Palestine Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Arab Film Festival. The Reports on Sarah and Saleem by director Muayad Alayan and writer Rami Alayan has reached a total number of nine international awards while representing Palestinian cinema in more than 20 film festivals around the world.

Ever since its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), where it won the Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay in the festival's Official Competition (Hivos Tiger), in addition to the Audience Award (Hubert Bals), the film has been taking part in international film festivals winning five more awards, including the Best Film Award and Best Actress Award at the Durban International Film Festival, Best Film Award and Special Jury Prize at the Titanic International Film Festival in Hungary, and the Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival.

The Reports on Sarah and Saleem is set to have its UK premiere at the Leeds International Film Festival in cooperation with the Leeds Palestinian Film Festival.

Set in Jerusalem, Sarah and Saleem are having an extramarital affair that ignites a dangerous game of deceit between those who hold power and those who don't.

The film won the production support of the Arab Fund for the Arts and Culture (AFAC), Film Lab: Palestine, World Cinema Fund (WCF), Hubert Bals Development Fund (HBF), the Netherlands Film Fund + HBF and the HBF + Europe coproduction scheme among others. Written by Rami Alayan and directed by Muayad Alayan, The Reports on Sarah and Saleem stars Maisa Abd Elhadi, Adeeb Safadi and Kamel El Basha. The film is a joint production between PalCine Productions in Palestine and co-producers KeyFilm in the Netherlands, Manderley Films GmbH in Germany and Monofilms in Mexico. MAD Solutions handles the distribution of the film in the Arab world.

Muayad Alayan is a Palestinian film director, producer and cinematographer based in Jerusalem. After completing his studies in San Francisco, Alayan returned to Palestine with the goal of making organic cinema by and about Palestinians as a community; a cinema made through the participation of people coming together to tell stories, against all odds and with means that creatively defy limitations. At the age of 22, Alayan tested his vision with his first narrative short, Lesh Sabreen?, which was made with the participation of youths and young adults in his home village, focusing on their experiences and concerns of youths living in Jerusalem under the occupation. The film premiered in a competition at the prestigious Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France in 2009 and went on to compete at several other prestigious festivals, such as Palm Springs Short Festival and Dubai Film Festival, in addition to over 60 other festivals in 25 countries worldwide. In 2016, Alayan took part in the Berlinale Talents platform.

Rami Alayan is a designer, filmmaker and producer based in San Francisco. He holds a professional certificate in feature film writing from the UCLA Extension School as well as a master's and two bachelor degrees in computer science and business management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Alayan's debut as a film director was in 2011, with his short film Private Sun. The film was selected at over 70 film festivals all around the world, including Palm Springs Shortfest, Montreal World Film Festival, Filckers Rhode Island Film Festival and DC Shorts. It won nine awards including five for Best Short Film.

Since its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, Alayan Brothers' feature debut Love, Theft and Other Entanglements has received wide acclaim at film festivals around the world. The film won Best Narrative award at the 19th Arab Film Festival (AFF) in San Francisco, USA. It also competed within the Official Competition for Debut Feature Films at the 26th Carthage Film Festival, selected at the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), where it took part in the Arabian Nights section. Love, Theft and Other Entanglements also participated at the Seattle International Film Festival in USA, Taipei Film Festival in Taiwan, Galway Film Flead in Ireland and the Vancouver International Film Festival in Canada.